


Only Human: Glacier One Shot

by whamelie



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Fluff, GLACIER, M/M, One Shot, glaciershipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 23:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whamelie/pseuds/whamelie
Summary: Zane finds Cole alone in a room on the bounty, struggling severely with new happenings. Cole opens up, and the two of them confide in each other, perhaps sparking a new passion between them...Another commission from somebody on Amino! Glacier this time, it was pretty fun to write!





	Only Human: Glacier One Shot

Zane sighed as he walked into the bridge. Everybody on the ship was there, except for one person. The one person he was looking for.

Cole was absent.

"Oh, hey Zane." Jay waves, looking up from the blueprint he was looking over.

"Hello Jay. Have you by any chance seen Cole?" He asked, getting very straight to the point.

Everybody heard him, and the light jovial attitude of the room sank very quickly.

"... I... no. I haven't." JAY replied, after a few seconds of hesitation.

"None of us have." Nya added.

It was true. Ever since Cole was... turned, he had been rather solitary. Opting to sit on his own somewhere rather than socialise.

"All he does these days is sit in the dark and sulk." Kai groaned, stretching his arms above his head. It was no secret that Cole's uncharacteristic behaviour had been getting on his nerves.

"You can't really blame him though, can you."

"Mmmh. I guess."

Zane sighed again.

"Does anybody have any idea where he could be?" He spoke, bringing the room to his attention once more.

"Whichever room is the darkest on the Bounty." Kai answered. Zane have him a disapproving look that shut him up pretty quickly.

"... he's spent quite a lot of time in the supply closet at the back of the Bounty lately. Maybe check there?" Nya suggested. Zane smiled for the first time that day.

"Thank you, Nya." He said, and headed off towards his destination as quickly as he could without running.

The familiar thump of his feet hitting the wooden boards carried on for a long time, longer than he thought it usually did. Was the journey to the closet usually this far?

He also felt, slightly... flustered. If that was even the right word.

Apprehensive. Worried. Concerned. His processor was hardly working at maximum efficiency, and he was sure that, had he been a regular biological human, he would be overheating as well.

Zane didn't quite understand. Why would he? There was no clear reason for any of these happenings.

They didn't scare him. He was simply just... very very confused.

Soon enough, he reached the supply room door, and out of courtesy, knocked it. Four equally timed bumps, marking himself as present for anybody in the room.

There was nothing for a few seconds, so Zane tried again. The four exact same knocks, expertly uniform and clear, and this time, there was a reply.

"... Zane?"

It was Cole alright. Nya's speculations had been correct.

"Hello Cole. May I come inside?" He questioned with a smile, even though he knew Cole wouldn't be able to see it.

"... yeah... sure..."

Zane turned the doorknob, stepping inside and immediately being engulfed in near darkness.

"Oh... do you want to turn the light on?" Cole asked, but Zane quickly denied his suggestion.

"I will simply turn on my low light mode. If the darkness is a comfort to you, I would never dream of taking that from you during hard times."

He sat down opposite the black ninja, on top of an empty storage box. Cole had sat down on the only proper bench in the space, leaving very limited options.

The low green glow of Cole's ghostly form started to show up in Zane's sight, and eventually, he could make his whole body out. Low light mode could work wonders sometimes.

"... how did you know it was me at the door?"

"... nobody else knocks like that. Only you. Four routine knocks, always the same distance apart. I've been noticing it for years."

Zane's processor whirred particularly viciously at that moment.

"... that is... touching. That you would remember such a small detail."

Cole sighed, breaking eye contact and looking at the floor.

"My turn I guess. I could bet you aren't just here for friendly chit-chat. Why are you here?"

Zane gave him a sad smile, and adjusted his sitting position.

"I am worried about you. You have been locking yourself away for days and days now, hardly ever coming out. It is very concerning." He answered.

Cole looked ashamed.

"I'm fine. I promise you, I'm absolutely fine.

"No, you are not."

The firmness and sureness in Zane's voice very quickly told Cole that he wasn't going to be deterred by his usual excuses. Maybe it worked on everybody else, Jay, Kai, Lloyd, Nya... But Zane? Zane could see right through every lie he could possibly fathom into existence.

There was no point of lying at all in this situation.

Cole was visibly struggling with words, stumbling over them repeatedly as he tried his best to get them out of his mouth. Zane was patient. There was no rush in this situation.

"... I... is.... isn't it obvious?" He finally forced out.

"Well... yes, but I felt it would be a little insensitive to go ahead with my hypothesis without listening to your feelings first."

He dipped his head down a bit, leaning closer.

"... unless you would like me to leave you alone?"

Cole snapped into animation, turning to face the nindroid in an instant.

"T-That's not it!"

"Ah, good. I was afraid for a second there that I had been intruding."

"No... you aren't. Don't worry. I just... I don't really know how to put what I feel into words..."

"That is ok. You can take as much time as you need."

Cole spend a couple of minutes collecting his thoughts, before opening his lips and speaking again.

"In the plainest way... it's... because I'm a... it's because I'm a ghost now. But it's... way... way more than that... not just the fact but... everything that comes along with it... I'll never be able to feel all the things I took for granted... carpet under my feet... rough wood, the texture of clothing. I'll never eat again either, or... or breathe... and... rain? Rain has turned from a mild inconvenience to something that will literally kill me! But even that... is dying something I can do? Am I... classed as already dead? Did I... die... in that temple? I... there are so many questions... so many... and I can't answer them... I don't even know where to begin. I just... being human, I felt like I complained so much about the tiny things... and... even the most annoying sensations... I wish I could still feel them. Splinters, stubbed toes, bruises, scratches... anything would be better than this... because.... all I feel now, is numb. Nothingness. And... it's... it's driving me completely insane."

Zane let him talk on and on, taking all his anger and self frustration out into words. He ranted for a long long time, and when he finished, he somehow seemed both more and less relaxed than he did at the start.

"... and now I can add annoying to the list... I've been talking about myself for the past however long... you must be bored out of your mind..."

"I am a nindroid. I am incapable of feeling boredom." Zane corrected him.

"Still... you have better things to do, than sit here and listen to me drivel on."

"Better things than trying to help somebody I care about?"

That statement caught Cole off guard.

"... but you care about Jay and Kai and that lot too. Why aren't you helping them? Why are you here with me."

With no hesitation at all, Zane replied, unfazed and not embarrassed in the slightest.

"Yes, well, first of all, none of them are suffering nearly as terribly as you are, and secondly, this is a very different type of caring isn't it?"

Shocked silence filled the space, and Zane was sure that had he not been a ghost, Cole's entire face would have gone up in an explosion of blush.

"... e... excuse me... what?"

"You heard me. It is true that I care deeply about my friends, but what I feel for you is clearly very different."

Zane's professor started vigorously working again, trying to work out Cole's dumbfounded expression.

"... a... are you... are you confessing to me?"

"... oh dear. I really did think that you already knew. It seemed quite obvious to me, and the rest of those on the ship agree as well."

"N-No I didn't know! I... I had no idea!"

Zane sighed and tilted his head, deep in thought.

"I've always been pretty straightforward. Confessions don't particularly phase me. It's simply the truth, and whether you return feelings or not, it's best to make sure that everybody involved knows it. Of course, if you do not feel the same way, I will be disappointed, but I'm sure I will be able to get over you in time and our friendship will continue."

Cole was still a little too full of surprise to speak more than simple sentences, and Zane could tell he found the silence unsettling. Instead of sitting and waiting for an answer, he carried on speaking.

"Perhaps I should have told you outright about how I felt, however, I did believe that it was obvious enough without that. Perhaps I also didn't want to scare you away, as, I have had these feelings for quite a long period, and when they started, we hardly knew each other. I didn't want to create an uncomfortable link. But now, I trust that we know each other well enough to move forward with this news one way or another, either moving on or... possibly moving forward as a couple instead of friends. That all depends on how you feel, of course. No matter what you feel, by the way, I will still be your friend, and I will still be here for you, romantic care or not."

Zane was overwhelmingly glad that Cole was the only one hearing his words. Had anybody else been standing outside, eavesdropping, probably starting to yell and Male a fuss as soon as they heard him confess, it would have spoiled the mood.

Cole eventually found the ability to speak again.

"... but... why? Especially... why now?"

Zane gave him a look.

"I thought you knew your own good qualities. Everybody on the team has to know what we're good at and what we aren't, that's how we do our job."

"In that case, why don't you... have feelings for Jay? He has good qualities doesn't he? So does Kai, and Nya, and what about Pixal?"

"Good friends indeed. Nothing more than that."

The poor black ninja was in shock. His day had started off as somber and solitary as ever, but, had now taken a rather dramatic turn. A confession, that he had never expected.

"... Zane... I'm not the most special person on this team..."

"You are to me."

"I-I'm not the strongest either-"

"If you were or weren't, it wouldn't matter."

"I'm just lazy!"

"Far from it."

"I'm not even human anymore!"

You could have heard a pin drop. The silence that followed was full of tension, that soon turned to chuckles on Zane's behalf. Chuckles that turned into laughter.

"What? What's so funny?"

It took him a little while to regain composure, which was especially odd for him, Zane, the nindroid who could stay calm in any situation.

"Wow, Cole... just wow."

"What do you mean wow? I... I don't understand..."

Zane rolled his eyes, then pointed at his own head.

"You said that you are not human, and that was apparently a reason for me to not care for you. I do believe you have forgotten about my predicament as well."

"... your... predicament?"

"I am an Android, Cole. I am not a human either."

Soon enough, as Cole realised his mistake, he started to hold down laughter as well.

"... oh crap... you are aren't you!"

"Yes, I am. So please, stop acting as if being a non-human entity makes you any less of a person. We are in similar situations here. I assure you, the team think no less of you, and nor do I."

Zane lightly fidgeted with one of his fingers, showing the first bit of nervousness all conversation.

"With that out of the way, I would much appreciate it if you... told me your reaction to my feelings. I am rather anxious to find out."

Cole crossed his legs up onto the bench he was sat on, and wrapped his arms around his waist.

"... I don't really know what I feel... I know that I've been closest to you but..."

"We could go slow. Let yourself find what is comfortable and isn't."

"... yeah..."

A small smile turned Cole's negative demeanour into one much more positive.

"... there we go... a proper smile at last."

Cole relaxed his shoulders, finally looking at Zane and maintaining eye contact.

"We won't be able to do most of the usual things... hold hands... kiss... all of that."

"No matter. That isn't really what relationships are about, is it?"

"Hah, I guess not."

Cole scooted over, leaving enough space for Zane to slip onto the bench next to him. He laid his hand where Cole's would have laid.

"We'll get through this?" Cole asked, giving him a soft look. Zane returned it, just as passionate.

"Yeah, we will."

The atmosphere changed completely, and finally, Cole felt... happy. Content for the first time in a while.

"... together."


End file.
